"A new analysis of licensing data shows that not only is use of the GPL and other copyleft licenses continuing to decline, but the rate of disuse is actually accelerating." This shouldn't be surprising. The GPL is complex, and I honestly don't blame both individuals and companies opting for simpler, more straightforward licenses like BSD or MIT-like licenses.

The key word there is exploit, companies shouldn't be allowed to exploit ANY academic research, it's why health care is so expensive and ruled by the drug companies pushing the pill of the week.

They are allowed to take all the academic research they like, tweak it my 1 atom, patent it, sell it at incredibly high prices, when the patent is going to expire, re-tweak it and re-patent it and kill the old product line.